"24 Hours in Cyberspace was the inspiration of photographer Rick Smolan, who created the 'Day in the Life' photo-essay series. Smolan used the same formula as 'Day in the Life,' recruiting 150 photojournalists to go out and chronicle a slice of everyday life, in this case as it pertained to the then-counterculturish phenomenon of the web.

The technology of the internet was not the subject: Smolan wanted (and got) pictures of how different people in different cultures were using the internet, and the effect that the medium of cyberspace was having on their lives.

The resulting work was edited and then displayed on a website. It also appeared as the cover story of that week's edition of U.S. News and World Report and, soon thereafter, as a coffee-table book."